


Textbook

by sweetonmeclarence (redmasque)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-02-06 23:21:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1876383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redmasque/pseuds/sweetonmeclarence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by a list of under-used AUs on tumblr. </p><p>“sharing a high school textbook and leaving each other notes and answers in page corners au”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Please take out your textbooks and read the pages listed on the board."

Dean sighed, receiving a few looks from the people sitting around him. He rolled his eyes at them. The beaten old history text book in the rack under his seat looked unappealing and just plain awful. Who wanted to read about the war of 1812? If he was more interested in history, yeah, maybe he’d want to read about it some, but all he heard was confusing bullshit from his teacher anyway, so who knew if the passage listed on the board was even  _on_  the war of 1812…maybe he’d just dozed off and woken up in time for the civil war? That’d be nice.

 _Page 167_ , the teacher’s near-illegible handwriting read on the chalkboard.

Dean flipped through the pages until he found the right one and stared at the first line for an entire minute. Why were history textbooks so damn  _boring_? History wasn’t all this dense. Dean knew that for a fact. He quickly lifted his hands to rub at his eyes in hopes that he was just tired because it was first period, not because the book was that fucking dull.

When he opened up his eyes, he glanced over at the adjacent page and did a double-take. No, he wasn’t imagining it. There was something written in pen in the margin at the top.

**_This is the most poorly-written textbook I have ever seen. —C_ **

Dean smiled and pulled out his own pen and, after glancing around to make sure that no one was looking, wrote:

**_I second that._ **

He capped the pen and set it on his desk, and he tried…he really tried to read that fucking textbook page, but it just…it just slipped his mind and, next thing he knew, they were talking about Ulysses S. Grant. Dean blinked. What? Wait, wasn’t he that civil war dude? Why was he…?

There was another note in the book in the same handwriting. It had an arrow leading from Grant’s name to the top margin.

_**Once, during his presidential term, Ulysses S. Grant was issued a fine for riding his horse too fast through the streets of D.C.** _

Dean grinned. He made sure the coast was clear, then wrote below the comment:

_**The S actually stood for “Speed”** _

There wasn’t another note until the end of the reading segment.

_**What useful information did that section hold, pray tell?** _

Dean replied.

_**Damnit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a historian!** _

He cackled to himself as the bell rang right then. He closed his book and slid it under his seat once again. Someone’d get a kick out of that at some point today.

—-

The next day, there were more comments in the margins in the same handwriting.

_**The Star-Spangled Banner was put to the tune of a well-known British drinking song.** _

_**No one really won the war. A treaty was signed, basically saying, “go back to normal, now”** _

_**The war technically ended after the listed end date here, since word traveled slower back then.** _

_**Although it says here that the war of 1812 is called “the forgotten war”, I must ask why it’s so forgotten? We are still expected to learn about it. The real “forgotten war” is the Quasi War. I see nothing about it in here, do you? (And who is Jim?)** _

Dean replied on the last page of the reading portion, below the final comment.

**_Dude, you know too much to be in this class. This is pointless for the most part, yeah. What the hell even happened in the war of 1812? I don’t even know, man. That was all freaking confusing. No one’s gonna care that I didn’t get this thing in the future. (And h ** _ave you never seen Star Trek before?)_**_ **

—-

They conversed over the next week. The guy’s (it was a guy) name was Castiel. He was in Dean’s year, and had a love for classical literature, was in the school’s top-level jazz band, had never listened to Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd or ACDC or Guns and Roses or Nirvana or Kansas or anything Dean liked, and hadn’t  _ever_  seen Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, or Star Trek.

The guy didn’t seem to understand why Dean thought that this was a tragedy, but he was apparently very amused by Dean’s reactions to every one of his answers.

It was the end of the grading term before Castiel finally left Dean a different kind of message: a cell phone number at the end of the chapter review section with little, cartoon wings and a cloud drawn around it and a message saying:

_**Text me. You need help studying, and I still want to know who Jim is.** _

Dean entered the number into his phone quickly, and texted:

**who** **says I need help studying**

Castiel texted back immediately with a smiley-face emoticon.

**friday after school? meet at front door? im the handsome one in the leather jacket.**

Castiel replied:

**Absolutely. Now stop texting in class.**

Dean stashed his phone, put his head down on the desk, and propped up his textbook to hide the stupid grin on his face.

_It’s a date, then._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sequel requested, therefore a sequel is written (or, at least, attempted)
> 
> The meet-up.

Dean jumped out of his seat as the last bell of the day rang. It was Friday. Castiel would be meeting him outside of the school at any minute and…man, he had  _never_  been more excited to meet up for a date before. It was so un-cool, getting all worked up like this. Not cool at all. It wasn’t like anyone knew they were doing this, though, so there wasn’t anyone to keep up appearances for, was there?

“What’s up with you, dork?”

Right. There was Charlie.

“I’m glad it’s Friday,” he said quickly. “It’s been a helluva long week.”

“I’m not gonna deny that.” The redhead threw her arm around Dean’s shoulders and feigned collapsing onto him. He laughed and flicked her to get her off of him. She rolled her eyes and leaned against Dean’s locker as he fiddled with the knob on the lock.

“But really.”

“Really, what?” Dean said as innocently as he could. “I’m done, I’m tired, and I’m ready for D&D on Sunday. That not enough of a reason for you?”

“Nope.”

“Gee whiz.”

“You’re gonna tell me,” Charlie said, moving out of Dean’s way as he opened his locker and retrieved his backpack. “Is it Lisa Braeden? Hmm? Maybe that Anna girl?”

“Anna?”

“From the lunch table, you know.”

“Oh,” Dean sighed dramatically, “the one who’s been making doe eyes at you all term?”

Charlie frowned.

“What?”

Dean laughed and patted her shoulder as he slammed the locker door closed again. He jiggled the lock to make sure everything was secure. The backpack was easily slung over his shoulder as he walked towards the front door of the school. Charlie scampered along behind him.

“But seriously, man, who is it?” She squinted at him and asked, “It’s not Benny, is it?”

“No, no,” he said, waving his hand at her dismissively. “He’s got that thing for Andrea, remember? And, I mean, he’s a big teddy bear and all, but I ain’t gettin’ in the way of that.”

“Whatever,” Charlie said and punched his shoulder playfully. “I promise not to tease you until Sunday, okay? Just tell me the name of whoever’s got you acting like this.”

Dean groaned.

“Fine. You swear?”

“When have I ever lied to you?”

Dean stared at her.

“Yes, Dean. I swear.”

He rubbed at the back of his neck nervously and leaned against the wall by the front entrance. The stream of excited high schoolers poured past them. Dean watched carefully for anyone in the crowd who could possibly even look like a “Castiel”. He looked Charlie in the eye, gathering the confidence to explain his situation. It’s not like she’d judge or be cruel or anything, of course. It’s just that he…he doesn’t usually get all red in the face or butterfly-gut-ish when he’s getting ready to meet someone.

Then again, he doesn’t usually meet people via scribbled notes in the margins of textbooks.

“I’m meeting up with some guy named Castiel who’s never seen Star Trek before,” Dean explained quickly, “and he’s gonna help me out in history and we’ve kind of never met face-to-face before and…yeah.”

If Charlie tried grinning any wider, Dean thought, she might just split her face wide open. She made some strange, excited squeaking noise and bounced up and down on her heels. Dean shook his head and moved around her so that he could head out the door.

“See you later, Charlie.”

“Text me and tell me how it goes!” she called after him. He waved her off and stood by the steps leading down from the school’s entrance. Kids piled into buses out at the street, and, after a few minutes, Dean found himself alone with a few other kids who were scattered around the area. He was worried. If nobody showed up by 3:20, he’d leave. That gave this guy enough time, he figured. Twenty-five minutes for this Castiel person to get out of class, collect his book bag, and make his way to the front door (at a snail’s pace)…that was surely reasonable.

It was about 3:15 when a guy in a tan trench coat and ruffled-looking brown-almost-black hair stumbled out of the front doors, wrestling with his backpack zipper and trying not to trip over his own feet at the same time. Dean raised a curious eyebrow. The guy gave up on the zipper and sighed heavily. He desperately tried to straighten his totally-not-sex-hair out and slung his bag over his shoulder before looking around nervously. His bright blue eyes settled on Dean for a moment. He glanced around at every one of the other students in front of the school for a second before he turned to look at Dean once again.

“…Dean?”

That voice was one Dean could get used to, he thought with a smile—gravelly from either over-use or under-use, he wasn’t too sure, and deep like nothing he’d ever heard before.  _Damn_. Dean shook himself out of it.

“Cas?”

The guy shot him a small,  _so_  not adorable smile.

“Yes, that is me.”

Yeah. This was gonna be good. The guy—Castiel—began walking towards him.

“Wanna go teach a guy how to understand his history textbook, then catch up on some pop culture?” Dean said as Castiel came to a halt in front of him. The guy clearly had little regard for personal space, but…well, Dean figured he could deal with that.

“I believe that that sounds like a good way to spend the afternoon,” Castiel replied. Dean smiled coyly and stared at those bright blue irises and their contrastingly deep, pitch-black pupils…

Castiel was kind of staring back, Dean noticed quickly. His smile widened and he held out his hand for Castiel to take. Cas stared at him for a moment before snapping out of whatever thoughts were crowding that dorky little head of his and grabbing onto Dean’s hand loosely.

Yeah, this was going to be good—Dean could feel it already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that that was satisfactory!  
> If you want to request anything fic-wise, I'm a multishipper who likes writing ficlets too much for my own good, so you can contact me quickly either here (reviews and comments are good as a soul to me, for the most part) or via my tumblr (http://sweetonmeclarence.tumblr.com).  
> Thanks for the lovely comments, the kudos, and all the kind words all around.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sweetonmeclarence on tumblr, if you'd like to drop me a line sometime. Maybe prompt me to write another little something like this. It's all up to you, really. Hope you enjoyed the ficlet.


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